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Raimonds Staprans

Artist and playwright Raimonds Staprans was born in 1926 in Riga, Latvia. The painter is known for his depictions of fruit, chairs and architecture using flat planes of color to create form and light. In his own words he says this about his work:

“I am an abstract painter whose objects are really recognizable and sometimes quite realistic, but one has to really realize that they are all, everything, even if the object in the paintng looks quite realistic, they are really constructed from the ground up in absolutely abstract terms. But when you really look at it closely, even if I paint the glass, there is very little truth in it . It looks realistic, but when you compare it to the real thing, it really isn’t t here. It’s like the reflections on such, the shadows are quite different, so it’s an illusion. It’s an illusion. But the paintings themselves are quite abstract, and that’s why I really take a joy in it .”

You can learn more about the artist here on an interview with Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.